Why It’s OK To Want More

The sensation washes over me as soon as my sleepy eyes open. A mixed emotion of desire, anxiety and slight disappointment in knowing I’m not there yet– I’m not where I want to be in life.

This feeling never really goes away and although I enjoy life, I have this horrible awareness of failure. I have an uncontrollable desire to be, do and have more and because of this I feel dissatisfied.

Desire is what fuels me every single day, it’s what keeps me from going insane; keeps me from giving up and going to find a ‘real’ job.

The desire that one day I will be where I want to be.

I look around me at my friends who all seem so settled and I wonder why I can’t just feel content? I’m not entirely sure the last time I felt contentment, which is odd considering there really isn’t anything bad about my life at all, but you know, I’m also not swinging from the chandeliers every day either. I mean, there has to be more right? This can’t be it for the next 50 years?

I look at how far I’ve come in the last 24 months, from living in a shed (a very fancy shed mind you) at the bottom of my parents garden, to living in a beautiful shoebox-sized house with my man and our english bull terrier and yes, I am truly thankful for this. But if this is it for the rest of my life, does that thought make me happy? No: I want more.

At times the fear & frustration of not being where I want in life is too much to carry around and on these days you’ll often find me curled up in the foetal position in our duck-down duvet nursing a bottle of Malbec. I remind myself that great things take time, which for a moment, almost makes me put the Malbec down, but then a little voice creeps in and says “Time? You’re 31 for Gods sake, don’t you think you’ve had enough time?” And I pull the covers up higher over my head.

When I’m having days like these I’ve learnt to just ride them out, to let my heart feel heavy for a bit– it’s a bad day that’s all. Generally these days are followed by episodes of manic highs and I’ll buzz around the house trying to do everything all at once whilst proclaiming I’m too busy to walk the dog, who’s been following me around for at least an hour. I’ll be too busy to say hi to anyone who happens to pop in to see me, too busy to even contemplate cooking a healthy dinner or replenish my body with some much-needed water. Wine: I can live off wine.

The end of the day comes and I haven’t really achieved much despite the fact I’ve been ‘busy’ all day. I realised only recently that there is a huge difference between being busy and being productive. Productivity means doing things efficiently whilst prioritising important tasks over tasks that really won’t make a difference to anyone’s lives if you do them or not. Being busy means your to do list includes tasks such as clean the house, food shopping, post images to Instagram– you know, the not so life changing stuff.

Productive days are great, they leave me feeling high and I kind of float upstairs to bed and sleep like a baby. Busy days leave me feeling tired and empty at the lack of accomplishment, mainly because I was too busy to actually sit down and get one top-priority task done. Like a dead weight I drag myself to bed feeling annoyed for wasting a day that I will never get back. I can’t switch off and sleep doesn’t come.

People who crave more in life are sometimes seen as unhappy, ungrateful or even greedy for not being thankful for what they have, often being told to live in the moment and stop worrying about the future. The way I see it? Wanting more, having dreams, working toward goals– this is necessary for some people.

And I happen to be one of those people.

Life has more meaning when I know I’m waking up with a vision that someday I will be, do and have more. I have to have something to work toward otherwise the boredom of every day life will slowly kill me and with boredom comes unnecessary worry, over thinking and not to mention too many carb related foods.

I must have faith in knowing there is more for me than this. I have to trust that I will accomplish greater things in my life. This doesn’t make me greedy, selfish or unhappy– this makes me a 31yr old woman trying to find her way in the world– a woman who isn’t about to settle for anything less.